The smoke surged.It didn't rush as a single wave—it split, fragmenting into writhing silhouettes that dragged themselves free from the churning mass.
The first shapes took human form—long-limbed, eyeless, their outlines flickering at the edges like burnt paper. Others followed, far less human: a wolf's shape with too many legs, a serpent with a head on both ends, a hulking, winged thing that scraped the ceiling with clawed knuckles.
The sound they made wasn't a roar—it was like hearing breath pulled backward into lungs that didn't exist.
"Here they come!" Gideon's voice was steady, but his axes were alive now—one burning with deep crimson heat, the other exhaling cold blue vapor. Each swing cut through the dark, scattering shadow fragments that boiled away before they could hit the water.
Ezra thrust her palms forward, raw mana flaring into an uncontrolled blast that lit the entire chamber for a heartbeat. The wolf-thing dissolved under the burst, but the shockwave cracked two nearby pillars, showering them in shards of stone.
Eliakim didn't waste a second—he stayed mobile, weaving between columns, striking only when an opening appeared. His blades found the weaker joints in the shadows' forms, carving through them with surgical precision.
---
Through the chaos, Nathaniel stood apart—never in the thick of it, but never leaving either. Twice, Eliakim saw a shadow-beast break off to strike at them from behind, only for Nathaniel to flick his wrist and let something—blades? wires?—flash in the dark, cutting the creature down.
But he never looked at them. Never acknowledged his assistance.
It was impossible to tell whether he was helping them survive… or keeping his prey from dying too soon.
---
The tendril they had chased slithered deeper into the smoke-storm, vanishing into a tunnel on the far side of the cistern. The largest of the shadow-beasts—a winged form with a skull-like head—landed hard in their path, sending a spray of foul water across the chamber.
Gideon met it head-on, axes clashing with the thing's claws, red and blue light locking against inky black. Ezra's magic lanced past him, destabilizing the creature's wings, and Eliakim seized the moment to slide beneath it, slicing through the shadow where its chest should be.
The beast dissolved with a sound like rushing wind.
---
They broke through the last of the shadows, water splashing wildly around them. The passage beyond sloped downward, narrower and lined with half-rotted timbers.
The smoke here wasn't scattered—it was purposeful, streaming along the walls in thin, focused currents.
By the time they reached the end of the slope, they understood why.
---
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber—older than the sewers, its walls covered in deep-carved runes that pulsed faintly in the torchlight.
In the center, a man knelt, draped in a tattered robe of midnight cloth, his head bowed in concentration. Four braziers of black fire burned around him, each tethered to a different direction by winding trails of smoke—north, south, east, and west.
Eliakim's mind clicked the pattern together instantly. Four sides of the city. Four anchors.
The man's hands moved in slow, deliberate patterns over the ground, where a sigil as wide as the chamber itself was carved into the stone. The smoke from above was being drawn into it, feeding something unseen below.
The shaman raised his head, as if he knew they were there, and the air seemed to vibrate.
"Too late," he whispered.
The braziers flared—black fire licking the ceiling.
And the chamber went dark.